by EE Knight
They’d have to live on WHAM!, flatbread, and Kentucky molasses, and possibly a culled legworm or two, but with a little luck spring vegetables could be found.
Valentine would take Ahn-Kha and a handful of others as part of “Force Light.” They would go ahead and, using Dizzy Bee, the sole operational airplane at Evansville’s former International Airport, and fly to a small Southern Command field Lambert had used when she forcibly “recruited” Valentine into her Special Operations force three years ago.
He could stay up all night counting the miles he’d travelled since reconnecting with his old schoolmate across that conference table.
Valentine would gather those Golden Ones willing to take a chance and move east across Missouri. There was a wide swath of no-man’s-land there, patrolled by the Iowans and Grog tribes. Southern Command should be able to start them off well supplied, Lambert had already requested the rice and beans, and the Golden Ones had their own stores and herds, he imagined.
As the days to departure ticked off, Valentine looked forward to the relief of being in country. The endless details and questions coming at all but the night watch hours—he volunteered to pull duty at the base security and communication center so he could get caught up on his paperwork—maddened and exhausted.
Ex-Quislings were terrified of taking initiative. Even the small force remaining at the base had been thrown into a panic by the thought of being abandoned by Duvalier, Patel, and Valentine.
He squeezed himself, Ahn-Kha and Bee, Frat, and a trio of Wolves, two with communications ratings, Chieftain the Bear, and their assorted gear into the cabin along with Pellwell and her ratbits in their two big carriers.
Duvalier had come too, a slight figure wrapped in her coat at the very back of the plane, riding next to a seat carrying a duffel bag filled with Chieftain’s guns, Valentine’s Type Three strapped in between the two like a thin commuter making room. Valentine had lost the struggle with her, she told him in private that she’d simply tag along around Force Heavy somewhere.
Valentine knew luck figured into everything. Every time he’d had Duvalier along, somehow they’d found their way through to some mixture of survival and success and satisfaction. They combined, despite their differences, on some basic level like salt and pepper.
Bee, with her one eye full of fierce devotion, would pine like a loyal bluetick left home while the rest of the men and dogs went out for a hunt.
At least if she were under his eye he could make sure she slept and ate.
“You won’t blow it for lack of muscle,” Lambert said to him as she hung on the door. Outside the pilot walked around the plane with his mechanic, doing a final check. The wind sock showed a stiff breeze straight out of the west.
Valentine relished his role of navigator, even if the grizzled Evansville pilot gave him the controls in order to pour a cup of coffee from a red Thermos.
Valentine had learned to fly during a brief spell with Pyp’s Flying Circus in the Southwest, and this was his first opportunity to be in the air since he’d left his autogyro, a parting gift from the officer whose life he’d saved, outside Seattle. The Evansville pilot, who went by the handle “Wizard,” mostly told stories about all the fun he’d had shuttling higher-level Quislings around the Northwest Ordnance. The only interesting passages in three hours’ worth of remembrances of liquor and ladies of his glory days were a few details about the Quisling who used to own the great Audubon Estate, now the almost garishly lavish headquarters of the Legion.
“Old man Cass made his money in coal and timber from the knobs. Plus he was one of the partners who originally developed WHAM! After his plant opened up in E-ville, he fixed up his piece of Henderson and set up with the nicest ass he could find between here and Pennsylvania. She popped out a few kids to keep up appearances and stay in the good graces of the Church, but none of them grew up worth anything. That’s how it usually is with those captains of industry.”
“You wouldn’t know where he is now?” Valentine asked.
“Would I? I flew him out personally. He’s up on the Michigan shore now living on some other industrialist’s charity. Pisses him off that one of his kids is probably sweeping your floors.”
“I thought they all fled?”
“Slim Jim Cass was one of the Evansville club-spinners. Of course, even when on duty, the spinning was at the local strip joint off River Row. He joined up with you guys to keep from getting hung.”
Valentine didn’t remember anyone named Cass in the command. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Quisling had taken the name of a dead comrade or made something up. Still, the factoid troubled him. He took out his order book and made a note to contact Lambert about it.
Dizzy Bee struck weather over the Mississippi, making Valentine glad he wasn’t at the controls. The pilot looked at the approaching cloud line, gave a verdict: “Not that bad,” and altered course a little south in hopes of either sliding along the front or getting a little more distance should they be forced to set down.
In the end, the pilot picked a spot and plunged through. Valentine had a few bad minutes, wondering if his bumpy career would come to an even bumpier end.
Ahn-Kha made a terrifying howl, followed by a long wretch, followed by an even more terrifying smell. Valentine had forgotten to tell his friend to breakfast off something that wouldn’t smell too bad should it come back up.
Suddenly the whole plane went wet with a loud smack of rain and the air steadied.
“Yeah,” the pilot commented. “We’ll be fine.”
Valentine noted that aircraft pilots thought it wise not to tell their passengers if they thought it wouldn’t be fine.
The little Southern Command airstrip was as much as Valentine remembered it from his brief visit before. A small Southern Command flag on a pole, a big wind sock on an even taller one—practicality forcing military pride to bend.
“Didn’t anyone tell you? Sure the big fuzzies are under the protection of another Grog tribe. Only problem is, it’s Deathring Tribe.”
“Deathring?” Valentine asked. He’d heard the name somewhere or other back in the blurry memories of before he became a Wolf.
“They’re the pet tribe of the Iowa Guard,” Ahn-Kha said. “You and I encountered a few of their kind shortly after we met the Wrist-Ring Clan. Brass or bronze loops worn about the ear, neck, wrist, ankle, depends on the clan.”
“You forgot mean as a gutshot wolverine,” the sergeant put in. “Yeah, the poor Big Fuzzies—”
“Golden Ones is the correct term, Sergeant,” Valentine said.
“The Big Fuzzies,” the sergeant continued, “didn’t have much of a choice.”
“Sergeant, the Golden Ones saved my life. Call them Big Fuzzies one more time and I’ll be very angry,” Valentine said.
“General Martinez himself—”
“Isn’t here,” Valentine said. “But I’ll send him whatever part of you I chew off if you don’t start calling them Golden Ones.”
“Hey, Sergeant, he’s right,” a Wolf corporal said. “They did plenty of bleeding ’gainst those Iowa brownrings. Show them some respect.”
“Golden Ones, sir,” Sergeant Durndel said. “They got pinned against the Missouri. A couple swam for it, we have one here on the base cutting kindling and scrubbing pots and pans, matter-of-fact. We got orders to get rid of ’em, but we hide the Bi—Golden Ones when brass shows up.”
“What’s your name, Corporal?” Valentine said, turning to the other.
“James, sir. LaPorte T. Portly, to anyone who used to wear the deerskin. I mean yourself, sir.”
He was anything but portly, underneath a thick mane of dread-locks he looked as lean as a cheetah.
“Sorry, have we met?”
“No, but an old lieutenant of yours, Finner, he’s a captain now and he trained me. Told me about you and Big Rock Hill and all that. I’m proud to meet you.”
Big Rock Hill seemed an awful long time ago, especially when talking to a man who must ha
ve been shaving his first and only whisker when it happened.
“Thank you, Corporal James. If you’re in the mood to get out from under Sergeant Durndel’s eye for a week or two, you could take us up north.”
“Your friend there want to look up a relative?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, if it involves hunting a Reaper or knocking the Iowa Guard back to their corn silos, I’ll grab my clean underwear and rifle, sir. This gin rummy playacting war is for the legworms, if you know what I mean.”
Valentine didn’t know what Corporal James meant, but he soon found out over a plate of salted pork and some unusually decent carrot soup.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a malcontent or an insubordinate,” James said. “But since Martinez started running the show, the only time our rifles are out of their sheaths is for inspection, Major. The shoe leather and coats are better these days, and the food’s improved so much you might think we’re back home with Mama. I’ll give him this. General Martinez is crazy about food quality, he has every cook between Jasper and the Rio Grande shaking in his apron when his staff blows in. It’s better. No more runnin’ and gropin’.”
Valentine recognized the old Wolf slang for running for a bush and groping for something to wipe with.
“You can call me Val, James. When I’m off my feet, we can drop the formalities.”
“Well, there’s someone came in special to meet you, sir. Major Brostoff. Said he used to serve with you under LeHavre in Zulu Company. He’ll dock my ears if I keep you any longer, he’s looking forward to sitting down with a drink or six with you.”
CHAPTER NINE
Northern Missouri: The Iowa Kurians and Brass Rings, mindful of the importance of their fertile land and rail corridors, cannot put any more physical distance between themselves and Southern Command’s forces in the Ozarks, so they do the next best thing. They put difficulties in the path of any move north and do all they can to add to the psychological distance.
The first layer of their defense is the free Grogs. While a few clans have been subverted by Kurian agents to launch raids and counterraids against Southern Command’s forces—David Valentine experienced one in his last year as a Wolf—in order to keep bad blood between man and Gray One, most are doing what tribal communities always do. They tend their herds, gather their crops wild and planted, and guard their territory from all comers as fiercely as needs must.
The Iowans keep these Grogs well supplied with weapons matching their formidable size and voracious appetite for heads taken in battle, accepting surplus legworm and mutton (the Gray Ones are fond of sheep and lamb for their meat and wool) and the wood and leather gewgaws the females and youngsters produce at a great disadvantage. But if the Gray One traders cackle over the canniness of their trades, they are oblivious to the manner in which their lives are being sold cheaply in skirmishes with Southern Command.
The next layer of defense is the Missouri River. The wide-ranging River Patrol with their fast, shallow-draft boats traveling between the kudzu-chocked banks, backed up by artillery barges towed into position when and where necessary, make life miserable for any incursion in strength. With every bridge demolished and the riverbanks full of hostile Gray Ones, keeping a large supply of boats for crossings or rebuilding a bridge becomes a near impossible object.
Between the Missouri River and the Iowa heartland is the brushfilled expanse of Northern Missouri. This is the realm of the Gray Baron.
It’s hard to say why men choose service as military advisors to the Grogs. Freedom from the strictures and Reapers of the Kurian towers, the Universal Church lectures, and the endless “volunteering” for timewasting make-work projects can be found in the brush as an Officer of Nonhuman Forces. The capricious Gray Ones are good friends in victory, but after a defeat are likely to place the blame on allies and assuage the sting of humiliation with the ONF scapegoat’s brain-basted liver. The Gray Baron is unusually adept at keeping his allied Grogs in line, perhaps because his savagery matches their own.
His Grogs roam the lands between Omaha and the Mississippi, running their own railroad (the “Grog Express” runs the chord of his protective arc between Saint Joseph and Hannibal). They provide a backstop for any in-strength incursions from Southern Command and do what they can to stop the raiders and cattle thieves of the free Grogs south of the Missouri River.
Finally, there is the formidable military organization of the Iowa Guard. Able to draw on the sons and daughters from Kur’s most privileged Quislings, the wearers of the coveted Brass Ring, these scions of aristocracy get to “prove their brass” in keeping Iowa fat and contented. When the Grogs in Omaha cut the key rail line running to the west, they started a long, hard-fought campaign to evict the rebel Golden Ones. After a costly frontal-assault disaster and an even bloodier attempt at an envelopment, they settled into a siege that eventually broke the Golden Ones with heavy artillery and fearsome flame-spewing vehicles.
The Golden Ones still refused to surrender, and fled into the wild tangles of Northern Missouri for shelter. There they were eventually run to earth by the Gray Baron and bargained for what autonomy they could in exchange for giving up the fight.
Picking up with the rest of their unhappy history in this fateful year begins with the Force Light team’s venture into the Missouri brush from the Wolf outpost.
Brostoff’s airy tent still smelled of leather and rank sweat, the old odor Valentine was all too familiar with from his days in the Wolves.
Long ago, Valentine had served with Brostoff as a lieutenant. He was still obnoxious but a decent enough man when sober, who looked after his Wolves as though they were his own sons. Carefully guarding their health and blood, he made sure each of his team was equipped and ready before sending them out into the brush.
Still, it struck Valentine as odd that he’d made major. Especially major in a forward area. Southern Command kept all but the most secretive drunks in quieter areas until they either sobered up or their health gave out.
“We supply ourselves by trading with the Groggies,” Brostoff said. “There’s a good supply of root beer mix, always ready to send north. As long as we don’t shoot at each other, root beer flows north and lamb chops, ’shrooms, and spuds come south.”
Valentine sipped his root beer—the old Southern Command syrup, a legacy of some boggy old general who believed that the men built stills to brew alcohol because there were no quality soft drinks available. Brostoff drank artificial lemonade, a popular Kurian Zone beverage that Valentine suspected was generously seasoned with bad vodka. At least he tossed it down as if in a hurry to have it hit his stomach in the same manner he’d used as a younger man in Zulu company. Though in those days his hand didn’t shake when he set the glass back down again.
“My team needs to get to wherever those Golden Ones have been taken, sir. The sooner the better,” Valentine said.
“Wish I had a couple of scout cars or a good truck, but all our wheels have been put into reserve,” Brostoff said, topping off his glass. “You know, they used to have a plane at this post, back in the day, after we captured Dallas and those airfields in North Texas. I looked it up on the old base TOEs. There was talk of flying out to Colorado for talks with the Legendaires—the 4th Division. See if we could meet up mid-Kansas. I would have liked to have seen that. Now the 4th could be in Kansas City, Kansas, calling for help, and I’d have to sit on my hands and patrol the security zone. Defensive stance my right nut.”
“How about a guide?”
Brostoff downed his tumbler and belched. He winked at Valentine. “I can do better than that, Val. I’ll get you a couple of Cats to take you there. Cats don’t pay no attention to the Defensive Stance any more than the Bears do.”
Scheier and Jarvis were both impossibly young for Cats, to Valentine’s eyes.
Scheier, small and dark and pinched, looked to be older by a year or two and talked as though she were vastly senior to Jarvis, though Valentine doubted there
was more than a year’s difference between them. Perhaps the extra attitude made up for the fact that Jarvis was a full head higher. Jarvis reminded him of the big, strong milk-fed farm girls of Wisconsin. She even bound her head in a red handkerchief like a teen setting off to do the morning milking.
Being Cats, they both wore civilian attire, or at least what a sensible civilian moving among the Grogs might wear. Heavy canvas, layers of flannel, and some discreet padding at the knees, elbows, and shoulders offered a little protection under vented leather jackets.
They took Valentine’s team north in a series of careful quick-marches. Sometimes they moved by day, others by night. Valentine approved of the care they took in open country, careful to never skyline themselves and keeping well in the trees whenever possible.
The march was tough on Pellwell, however. She was still basically a civilian, and for all the power in her wiry body, she exhausted easily and finished her meals too quickly.
“The shorter the rations, the longer you chew,” Chieftain suggested during a morning meal of a toasted, doughy paste and some young heartroot Ahn-Kha had dug up from an old Grog campsite.
He rarely saw their two guides together. One always remained behind “babysitting” as he heard them whisper, while the other scouted, scrounged, foraged, explored, or picked out the next four-hour dash for safety.
Valentine had killed his first Reaper when their guides were practicing their handwriting on a blackboard. Babysitting, indeed.
Valentine discreetly inquired of Duvalier whether she knew anything about the pair.
“They came up after me,” Duvalier said. “I’m pretty sure they’re both second-generation true breeds.”
“Second—”
“Daughters of other Cats, trained by Cats. When the Lifeweavers hid themselves when the Free Territory was overrun, we had to make do. Maybe they don’t quite have our skills, but youth and confidence is still on their side. When more Lifeweavers come, I hope the first thing we do is train more Cats. You should start looking around the command and see who you want to bring in to the family.”